Read It From Our Clients!

"Collin transformed the website in one week! Not only does he design exquisite websites, he is a consummate professional. He made the whole experience a pleasure from start to finish. I will be referring everyone I know to Control Alt Designs!"
– RebeccaIris Institute

"I am truly one happy client and would highly recommend CAD/Collin to anyone looking to have a profesional website designed for their business. CAD is truly a friend to the small business owner."
– Gordon WattsDetail Guru

"Hey, Collin. Not only am I satisfied, I am inspired. Your design is adding so much momentum to what we're doing and building. Thank you so much for lending your artistic ability to Hattiloo."
– Ekundayo BendeleHattiloo Theatre

"We still think [CAD is] AWESOME!! And just so you know--the website is really great! We have already had a ton of wonderful feedback from people saying it is MUCH better than the original site. So, thanks!! "
– Mindy BryantEdge Optics Eyewear

How to Choose a Web Designer

All the time we come across potential clients that have had horrible experiences with previous web designers. Here are some common scenarios that we hear all the time:

"The web designer took the down payment and ran."

"Its taking entirely too long to create a simple website. Its been 6 months!"

"I paid all this money and the website doesnt look that great."

"I can never reach my web designer. And when I do reach him, he always has an excuse."

To help you avoid the above potential headaches, here are

3 questions you need to ask your web designer.

(By Collin Johnson of Control Alt Designs)

1)Give me references, please?
A client once told me "Never trust anyone who tells you to trust them." If they do good work, it should speak for itself. With that in mind, always ask to see the designer's previous work. AND ALWAYS ask for references. And if you can, call people on their client list that they didn’t list as a referrence.

A good judge of whether or not they will do good work for you in the future, is looking at the work they did in the past. If you don’t like the work they have done, chances are you wont like the work they will do for you. If you want a good idea of whether or not the person will be pleasant to work with, know about their previous working relationships. The only way to do this is to actually speak with their previous clients.

2)What are you doing for the cost?
Unfortunately there is no standard cost of website design. Its a very subjective field. On a very high level, if you spend less that $400 or $500, you really cannot expect to get a lot from that. You can expect your website to look a little cheap. I get the question all the time "How much will this cost" and it really does depend on how much you want to put into it. Website design is advertising. Its like asking "How much does advertising cost". And of course that question can't be answered without more followup quesitons.

Is the fee hourly based or project based?. In my personal opinion you should know the full cost up front, and your web designer shouldn't stick you with any surprise bills that you never knew about.

Ask for everything that the designer will do for you in a line-itemed list.

Layout clear cut terms to protect you and the web designer.

NEVER pay the full balance up-front. A down payment is fine.

3)What about hosting?
This is another big problem I run into all the time. I may ruin it for a lot of web designers out there who are charging their clients a lot, but pure hosting, just to have your website up and running shouldn’t cost you more than $8 bucks per month. If you are being charged more than that, just ask your web designer to give you a line item list of things that they are doing to justify the cost.

Also, if they want to host your website on their own dedicated server, they will essentially own your website (and might choose to hold your website hostage until you give them more $$$).

Unless you are a large company you do not need a dedicated server. Purchase a basic hosting plan and email from Hostgator, Godaddy, or many other respected host companies. Why? They offer 24/7 support, the price is about $70 a year, and they rarely have problems.

Credibility Counts!

Do you look professional?

It takes less than eight seconds for a potential customer to "size you up" online. During that eight seconds, people are already forming opinions about the credibility of your company simply based on how your website looks.